


there's a light in the hallway

by writing_addict



Series: the overactive mind of a believer, the toxic thoughts of an overachiever [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And here they are, Deleted Scenes, Edward Elric Needs a Hug, Fluff and Angst, He Gets Many, Hurt Alphonse Elric, Hurt Edward Elric, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, One Shot Collection, Parental Riza Hawkeye, Parental Roy Mustang, also the ed/winry comes in much much MUCH later, bc these one-shots are jumping around, conflicted by the very air i breathe, i kept promising everyone one-shots from this universe, you will need to read conflicted by the very air i breathe before this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22966333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_addict/pseuds/writing_addict
Summary: A collection of deleted scenes, one-shots, and alternate universes set in the universe ofconflicted by the very air i breathe, across years and worlds and oceans of words. Contains directions the fic was going to go but didn't, cute ideas that just didn't fit in with the general plotline, and stories that diverge from this already canon-divergent plotline! Plus a greater focus on the homunculi and several OCs. Enjoy!Chapter Two: Trisha watches over her boys after her death--and when her eldest son shatters into a million pieces, she refuses to let him join her in death just yet...and pushes him to fight just one last time.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Team Mustang, Edward Elric & Riza Hawkeye, Edward Elric & Roy Mustang, Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Series: the overactive mind of a believer, the toxic thoughts of an overachiever [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1650457
Comments: 78
Kudos: 144





	1. anything for my boy in the bedroom down the hall

**Author's Note:**

> so...I promised it, like, constantly, and here it is! at last! this won't have a set update schedule, so chapters will come as i get ideas. i'm open to prompts, so feel free to leave them in the comments! thank you <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They were _wrong,_ to call him weak. To think of him as less, or as broken, as nothing. Being scared and being small didn’t make him bad. Her boy was _good._ Her boy had always been good, even before she’d been his Protector. It wasn’t his fault that he needed her, and she wished she was a real dragon so she could burn them up until they had the same scars that her boy had. Instead, all she could do was feel tears soaking into her soft, blue fluff and feel her little heart break inside her with every shattered sound that came out of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally see into the mind of a character that has been there since the beginning: a certain dragon whose job it is to keep Ed's nightmares at bay.

Here was the thing: Ree loved her boy.

He was sweet. He was gentle, and kind, and good, even if he didn’t believe himself to be any of those things. She had adored him from the moment his mother (in spirit if not in blood) had set her in his lap, felt her little plush heart swell with love when a thin arm crushed her to his chest like a lifeline. Of course, her boy’s family didn’t know what she was, not really. They thought she was a stuffed animal, a children’s toy, and they were right—she _was_ a plushie. But she was also a Protector, one of the handful of stuffed toys imbued with spirit and life to guard their little ones against anything that might hurt them. She eased nightmares, made her boy feel safer, feel like he could breathe. She couldn’t defend him physically, but she could ease his heart. That was her job.

It wasn’t a job, though, with her boy. It was a _joy_ to protect him, to help him. Any Protector would have been lucky to have such a kindhearted little one, someone so easy to love, and she counted herself luckiest of all to have been picked off the shelf and given to him. Even when he threw her across a cemetery or at the face of a very sad man, she loved him, because he was her boy and she was his Protector and if that made him feel better, it was worth it. He always picked her up and hugged her and apologized a thousand times afterwards, too, which helped quite a bit.

The problem was, not _everyone_ loved her boy as much as she did. His brother and his mother and his father loved him fiercely enough to make up for most of it, as did the nice girl they’d gone to visit once or twice, but there were lots of awful people and the kind ones were also quiet, afraid to speak. She wished, over and over, that she was real, that she could protect her little one from terrible, cruel people like the man with the eyepatch or the laughing soldiers, but there were so many of them and she…she was a stuffed toy.

And suddenly, being a Protector felt like a lie—because what good was a Protector when she couldn’t even keep him safe? She could be there after every nightmare, be a comfort after every failure or panic or memory, but she couldn’t keep them from hurting him. If anything, she drew more bullies toward him, people who sneered at the sight of someone who was supposed to be grown-up and strong and unhurt with a stuffed animal, who laughed at him for crying and who jeered when he pleaded in that small, trembling voice for them to _please, please leave him alone, he knows they’re right, he knows, but can’t they please please please let him go this time?_

They never did. Ree could only ever watch helplessly in his arms as he was picked on, or insulted, or treated as _less_ because of all the hurt he carried inside. Once, she’d had to sit there, hating herself as one pulled his hair and snickered when her boy cowered and whimpered in fear. She couldn’t even go get his family to help, and when the cruel soldiers had gotten bored, she’d wanted to cry as her boy crawled under his father’s desk and started to sob quietly.

They were _wrong,_ to call him weak. To think of him as less, or as broken, as nothing. Being scared and being small didn’t make him bad. Her boy was _good._ Her boy had always been good, even before she’d been his Protector. It wasn’t his fault that he needed her, and she wished she was a real dragon so she could burn them up until they had the same scars that her boy had. Instead, all she could do was feel tears soaking into her soft, blue fluff and feel her little heart break inside her with every shattered sound that came out of him.

Her little one never told anyone about the bad people at the big military building. He was ashamed, even though Ree ached to tell him he shouldn’t be, that it wasn’t his fault. He’d only just gotten up the courage to wait in the offices alone when his mother and father were working outside of it. How could he admit to them that he was being hurt? That he was scared? _It’ll break their hearts,_ he told her. _And then—then they’ll get m-mad at the m-military an’ i-it’ll make ‘em l-leave. Or t-the military w-will hurt them a-an’—an’ it’ll be all my fault._

He’d broken down in tears all over again after that, and Ree kept _hurting_ right beside him, kept wishing, kept trying to figure out how she could do her job as a Protector when she couldn’t protect him from anything at all. This wasn’t a nightmare she could soothe away, wasn’t shame at a messed-up sentence or ruined bedsheets that she could comfort him for. These were _people_ picking on a frightened, hurt, heartbroken _child,_ and she couldn’t do anything to stop them.

His other stuffed animal was no help. She wasn’t a Protector. She was a little bit alive, too, but she was a Soother. Her job was to keep their boy calm and happy. Lavender ached to help him, too, but not to fight and defend him like Ree wanted to. It wasn’t in her nature. All either of them could do was simply be there.

It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t anywhere _near_ enough, not for Ree. Her boy was sweet and kind and gentle, and he’d been hurt _enough._ He’d been through _enough!_ He’d been beaten and burned and torn apart and hurt until all the pieces of whoever he’d been before she came were gone, squashed under the heel of someone far crueler than any human had a right to be, and it _wasn’t fair._ Her boy, her little one, deserved so much better than this world. His family protected him, but Ree was supposed to protect him, too, and—

And she couldn’t. No matter how hard she tried.

She wanted to scream when she was torn from her little one’s hand while he was waiting patiently in his father’s office. He hadn’t been doing anything to hurt anyone! He’d been drawing! He was being _good!_ He wasn’t doing anything to deserve this, he’d _never_ deserve this—but she was poked and prodded by the fingers of a jeering human, and forced to watch as her boy sniffled and reached for her with shaking hands, already begging— _please don’t hurt me, give her back, m’sorry, m’sorry._

 _Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault._ But she couldn’t speak, and she couldn’t help him, and she couldn’t scream for help when one of them cut her boy’s favorite hairtie into shreds, or when the third took his beloved notebook and pretended to admire the drawings before ripping them to pieces. She couldn’t go to him when his face crumpled and he started to cry in earnest, reaching desperately for the papers as the soldier held them just out of reach, making him stumble about before pushing him to the ground. He didn’t try to get up, instead desperately trying to put the scraps of paper together into something resembling the original picture as he was laughed at. A boot flashed out and kicked him in the side, and he collapsed with a sob, curling up, and Ree—

Ree _burned._

_Enough._

Fluff gave way to flesh and bone, soft horns turning hard and spiraling high, tiny felt claws curving wickedly. Wings of soft fabric stretched wide, fuzz turning to deep cobalt-blue scales, black button eyes burning to a deep, poisonous yellow as her body shifted. A beating heart thrummed in her chest, loud as thunder, blood roaring through her veins as she grew. The soldiers were frozen, and she didn’t know why for a moment, startling as her horns brushed the ceiling, her wings suddenly cramped and confined in the formerly large room. Her ears flicked—and _moved,_ and pinned back against her skull as she _breathed,_ gasping breaths that pulled into her lungs past deadly-sharp fangs and a long, forked tongue. She exhaled slowly through her nose, smoke spiraling through the room as the ridges on her back hardened into proper spines, before blinking.

A beating heart. A living body.

She was… _real._

Ree rumbled slowly, the noise coming to her instinctively as she lowered her head, baring her teeth. They stared at her with wide eyes, fear clear in their posture, and she relished it, lips pulling back into a vicious, hateful smile. **_“LEAVE,”_** she snarled, standing over her crumpled, crying boy, fire burning in the back of her throat. _Give me one good reason to do it. I dare you. I beg you. Give me one. Good. Reason._ She’d wanted to do this for _months._

And now? Well, now, _no one_ was going to hurt her little one. _Ever._

They left. She didn’t spare them a second glance, shoving his father’s desk into the corner with a push of her tail and only a tiny bit of guilt before curling around her crying little one. Gently, she nuzzled at him, draping a wing over him like a tent to make his world a little smaller, a little less frightening. **_“Edward,”_** she crooned softly, wrapping her tail around him protectively. **_“Little one, darling one, I am here. I am here.”_**

Golden eyes opened a tiny bit, before going wide, tears still slipping down his cheeks. She patiently let him pat at her scales with his automail hand as he sucked quietly on his flesh ones, unflinching even when steel touched the soft, thin scales of her eyelid. She let out a soft purr as he squirmed under her chest, pressing up to the place where her heart beat steadily, blinking down at him. **_“Hello, darling.”_**

He blinked at her owlishly, before pulling his fingers from his mouth and whispering, “R-Ree?”

She purred again in acknowledgement. **_“Yes.”_**

“M-my Ree?” ****

**_"Your Ree,”_** she agreed, bumping her head against his chest. Skinny arms wrapped around her neck in return, utterly trusting, and she hummed softly. **_“I have always been your Ree.”_**

He stared up at her, before giggling a bit hysterically. “Y-you broke D-Da’s d-desk.”

**_“He can fix it.”_ **

“…N-not goin’?” he croaked after a moment, and she churred quietly in grief as he pressed his forehead against her scales, clinging to her desperately. “W-will stay?”

Ree curled her wings around her boy, finally the Protector she was meant to be, and promised, **_“Until the day I die.”_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, folks! I decided that now was a good time to post this, with the main story finally done and my schedule a lot more open for writing these one-shots. I hope this satisfies a little of the pain of losing a story <3 Leave a comment or a kudos if you enjoyed it, and I'll see you next time!


	2. like a river runs dry and leaves its scars behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She stayed in the cell with her brave, sweet boy, hoping that he might feel her presence—and at the same time, hoping he never would, because the only way she would be seen is if he was close to death himself. It would have been kinder, perhaps, to wish for him to die, to be able to hold her baby and protect him and tell him _it’s okay, it’s okay, you’ve gone where the monsters can’t get you._ But she wanted him to _live._
> 
> She—
> 
> She wanted him to see the sky one last time, at least. She wanted him to see the stars, and know what it meant to be safe. She wanted him to die _happy,_ a thousand years from now, not alone and scared and helpless.
> 
> So when Ed’s eyes stopped skating over her when he’d look around the cell, she swore it felt like her heart was stopping all over again. And when he reached his timid, shaking hand out toward her, tears spilling down his face as he whimpered wordlessly, she found herself crying with him, reaching out to take that small hand. It still passed through, a little more slowly than before, but—he was alive, for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally hitting y'all with that TRISHA POV!!! and ed's escape!!! [Heart of Stone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oyUJ1LQpc0) from Six: The Musical

Trisha Elric never realized the true depths of helplessness until she died. Watching her greatest joys fall into despair, crawl out of it, destroy themselves and shatter into pieces, put those pieces together—it would’ve been hard enough if she was still there, still able to hold them and comfort them and remind them that they were _children,_ that they should be playing and learning and not carrying the weight of her life and death and their own folly on their shoulders. Being stuck as a watching, waiting spirit…it was a wonder she hadn’t gone mad already. Or perhaps she already was. It was hard to tell, in the afterlife.

Perhaps she was, since she’d threatened _death_ to the people who hurt her children before. She’d never thought she could be angry enough to kill, but in death, she found that she would gladly slaughter her sons’ enemies if it meant they could be safe and happy and whole. She would give up her own limbs, her own body to spare them that pain. She screamed and raged at Death, at Life, at the Truth, wells of untapped anger she’d never felt (never _needed_ to feel) overflowing inside her as she begged for a chance to take their pain away. She wept bitter, heartbroken tears for the man she loved, first blamed him and forgave him and blamed him again, before her ire turned firmly to the Dwarf in the Flask. Van would never forgive himself anyway. He didn’t need her misplaced anger on top of it (even if she admitted some part of it was deserved).

Her sons…

Her sons _suffered._ And broke, and put themselves back together, made themselves stronger at the broken places. They burned down the place they were born and raised, forcing themselves not to give up. They fought murderers and monsters and liars, tried to leave the world a little better, a little safer than how they’d found it. Her Ed, who had been so sweet and forgiving despite his short temper and impatience, became angrier, more bitter. Her Al, who had trusted so easily and loved so much, learned to hide his heart and use carefully crafted words to keep his distance from the word. Childhood innocence ripped away and re-forged into bitter, cold blades and lonely nights that Trisha couldn’t protect them from.

She sat with Al almost every night, hoping against hope that he might feel her presence, that he’d know he wasn’t alone, that they were sharing this sleeplessness together. When Ed wound up in the hospital with bullet wounds and gashes and broken bones and shied away from the needles, she tried to hold his hand, kiss his forehead, tell him how proud she was of him. Whenever either of them made a self-deprecating comment, whenever they wondered if she would hate them, if they still deserved her undying love, she wished she could shake some sense into them and hold them close.

Death itself couldn’t keep her from loving her babies. Did they really think anything in the world could make her hate them?

She kept finding herself wondering how they’d managed to inherit Van’s incredible self-loathing. As angry as Edward clearly was at him (much of it well-deserved, she admitted once again, they should have worked out some way of staying in contact), sometimes she found herself smiling at the similarities she could see, right down to their tempers. At least, to what Van had told her his temper had been like as 23. Her boys had both inherited their father’s alchemic genius and Xerxean looks, but it seemed her eldest had gotten more of his temperament.

A year later, and she found herself wishing that she could still say that, that Ed was still short-tempered and impatient and quick to anger—because he _wasn’t._ Because her baby was taken by enemies he couldn’t defeat, because she’d tried and failed to hold him as he was wrapped up in barbed wire and he was shocked over and over, as a bar of heated metal was pressed to his skin, dragged across his flesh as his muffled curses turned to screams and then to wails. She screamed, too, screamed and wept and shouted her fury at men who couldn’t see her, who laughed when her son dragged himself into the corner of his cell and cried, who poured insults into his ears until he thought they were truths.

They didn’t hear her. No one heard her. Her son couldn’t feel her arms around him when he started to break, and he didn’t hear her begging him not to believe Lucen Richards when he was gifted with small kindnesses, didn’t see her wrap her hands around the monster’s throat when he pressed hot iron to her precious, beloved child’s tongue and turned the hope in his eyes to fear and compliance.

Hell. She was in Hell, and her babies were right there with her.

They couldn’t see her. They couldn’t feel her. No matter how many times she tried to drag Al in the direction of that cursed, hidden basement-cell (those monsters called it the Factory, a place where they molded and manufactured broken little dolls for those rich enough to pay), her hands slipped through his and her voice fell silent and he was left wandering the world in search of his brother. No matter how many times she tried to hold Ed, to kiss the wounds and tears away like she had when he was very small (but he’d never been _this_ small, her Edward had been a happy baby, curious and sweet, and the one who hid in corners and cowered and cried was entirely different and yet the same), she could never make contact, and her attempts to protect him always failed. They were in pain, they were alone, they were exactly what mothers were supposed to be there for and help with, and she _couldn’t._

Not for the first time, she found herself loathing Death, and Life, and all of it, because _none of it mattered._ Not when they were hurt and lost and the world that she thought would welcome and love them as she had instead turned its back on them. Nothing mattered except for Ed and Al. _Nothing._

She stayed in the cell with her brave, sweet boy, hoping that he might feel her presence—and at the same time, hoping he never would, because the only way she would be seen is if he was close to death himself. It would have been kinder, perhaps, to wish for him to die, to be able to hold her baby and protect him and tell him _it’s okay, it’s okay, you’ve gone where the monsters can’t get you._ But she wanted him to _live._

She—

She wanted him to see the sky one last time, at least. She wanted him to see the stars, and know what it meant to be safe. She wanted him to die _happy,_ a thousand years from now, not alone and scared and helpless.

So when Ed’s eyes stopped skating over her when he’d look around the cell, she swore it felt like her heart was stopping all over again. And when he reached his timid, shaking hand out toward her, tears spilling down his face as he whimpered wordlessly, she found herself crying with him, reaching out to take that small hand. It still passed through, a little more slowly than before, but—he was alive, for now.

But not for long. Not anymore.

And if she didn’t get him out tonight, her baby would be dead before sunrise, from the cold and from infections and from fear and pain and the sheer lack of will to go on breathing one more day. And if he died, then Al would let the last of the warmth in his soul die, and she’d lose both her sons.

_Trisha would not let that happen._

She knelt in front of him as he cried harder, heart breaking when his hand passed through her apron before he could grab hold of it. “Oh, honey,” she whispered, her hands cupping his face as best she could. “Sweet baby, brave baby, I know. I know. You’re so, so tired, and you have every right to be, you have every right—but you can’t stop. I can’t let you come to me just yet.” Ed’s eyes filled with fresh tears and he cried louder, broken, scarred body straining toward her as if she could wrap him up and protect him from the world—like she should have before. “I _know,_ Ed,” she choked out. “I know. I wanna hold you, I want to take care of you like you deserve, but—but I _can’t let you._ I’m sorry. I’m _sorry.”_

Ed pawed at her again and sobbed, and she could hear Them coming over the speakers, laughing and jeering, but she _willed_ herself corporeal—just for a second—and forced Ed’s eyes to stay on her. “ _No_ , honey,” she said firmly. “No. I’m getting you out, understand? I’m not letting you join me yet. I’m not letting you _go.”_ They’d started leaving the cell door unlocked and unguarded, believing that Ed was too frightened and helpless to try and escape anymore (which he was—which he would have been, if she wasn’t here). “I just need you to hold on a little more, okay? We’re gonna wait until the bad guys leave, and then I’m going to help you get outside.”

Ed stared up at her, eyes wide and wet, and for a terrible moment, she wasn’t sure if he understood. They’d been ripping away at his brain until he couldn’t read, until his brain continuously convinced itself he was evil and monstrous and nobody loved him, until he acted more like a very skittish, frightened three-year-old than a proud genius of fifteen years. If he’d really been put back at the developmental level of—of a _child_ , if They’d found a way to do that in terms of comprehension as well as skill, then he was—

_He was dead._

But then Ed nodded, and relief filled her, and she wrapped her arms around him. “Keep breathing,” she whispered, running a hand through his hair. “Don’t stop. Otherwise the bad guys win, and we’re not gonna let them win, okay?”

Ed sniffled tearfully, and Trisha watched him take careful, shallow breaths, hearing them rattle painfully in his chest. She closed her eyes after a moment, trusting him to follow directions, before they flew open again at a tiny, broken voice. “T-They’ve b-been winnin’ _f-f-forever.”_

Anger and grief rose in her chest, and she squeezed her eyes shut tight. “Well, they’re not going to win today,” she rasped. “And I _promise_ you, they will never be able to lay a hand on you _again.”_

She would find a way to kill them all. She would bring a mother’s wrath down on them one way or another. Not even _Truth_ and the precious _balance_ could keep her from protecting her children, and she would not allow petty things like _Fate_ and _Death_ to dictate whether or not they received her love, her aid, her protection.

She was patient. She waited, soothing and rocking Ed as he clung to her, reminding him to keep breathing whenever he became easier to hold, whenever he started slipping away. She waited until the voices stopped and the lights in the cell went dark, plunging Ed into the pitch-black. She could see fine, but he couldn’t and the frightened wail he let out broke her heart. She forced herself into that barely-corporeal state again, grabbing for his hand. “I’m here, baby, I’m here,” she encouraged. “Try to stand up if you can, okay?”

Trisha helped him carefully to his feet like she had when he was very, very young and just learning how to walk, a hand on his back and one wrapped around his. “Good job,” she whispered, trying to soothe the pained whimpers he let out. He tried to turn toward her, to find her, and she wanted so badly to say _you can come home, honey,_ but she didn’t. He had to live. “Come on, baby. One foot in front of the other, remember?” She helped him limp forward bit by bit, murmuring soothingly and praising him for every step until the door opened and small, mismatched feet found tile instead of concrete.

Ed’s cries cut off when he felt it, his gaze dropping to the ground as if he couldn’t comprehend it, and Trisha tried not to cry herself. “Just a little farther, sweet baby,” she whispered, touching his cheek, horrified to find her fingers barely slipping through. _No, no, no, you can’t die, I won’t let you._ “See the coat? The big one right there? I need you to take it and put it on, okay?”

Golden eyes blinked at her, the shattered soul she saw inside them struggling to understand, before he nodded and hobbled toward the peg the coat was hanging on. Trisha exhaled softly in relief when he managed to pull it on; it dwarfed him, falling past his knees and making him look tiny, but it would keep him _warm._

 _Stairs next. Stairs next._ “You’re doing great,” she soothed when his lower lip started to wobble at the sight of the staircase to the little backdoor, the one they never bothered locking because _he doesn’t know about it, he doesn’t even know how to get out of his cell anymore._ “We’ll take those one at a time, okay, honey? I’m gonna be right here. Mom’s right here.” She wrapped her fingers firmly around his hand ( _so cold, so close to death)_ and helped him up one by one, soothing him when he started to cry again— _halfway there, you’re doing so well, just five more—_

And then they were out.

Trisha saw something in Ed’s eyes change when cool air whipped past his face, seeing thick gray clouds covering a night sky—but they were clouds and they were real, and she knew that he _understood._ “There’s my sweet, brave boy,” she praised, and his eyes darted to her again before turning to the sky like he was scared someone was going to rip it away. “Hey—” Shit, she hadn’t quite planned for this part—“Ed, baby, I need you to look at me,” she said firmly, and his gaze snapped to hers, eyes wide and scared at her tone. She winced and softened it. “Do you have any way to get in contact with your brother, honey? He—he really misses you.”

Tears spilled over at Al’s name, and Trisha wrestled with the urge to let him fall into her arms, to take him away from this cruel, painful world altogether—before Ed nodding jerkily and started to inch slowly out of the alleyway and down the street. Trisha followed, keeping up her encouraging whispers as he hobbled toward…

A phone booth. “Good,” she whispered, steadying his hand as he put in tiny bits of change and dialed a number she didn’t recognize. His gaze skated over her again, and she breathed a sigh of relief even as her own tears started to fall. _He can’t see me anymore. He’s…he’s going to live._ “I love you,” she choked out— _I should have said it when he could hear it—_ “I love you so, so much, baby.”

Gold eyes drifted over her again, before fixing briefly on her as the phone rang. “M-m-miss y-you,” he breathed, and she sucked in a sharp breath—before he blinked and a familiar haze settled over his eyes as someone picked up the phone and said something she couldn’t hear. Her Ed inhaled audibly, like he wasn’t sure the person on the other end would pick up, before whimpering, “C-colonel?”

Trisha set her hands over her heart, and knelt in the phone booth with him until a car roared up and a man she’d never paid much attention to—a man she now owed _everything_ to, a man added to that very small list of people she would kill for—gathered her precious son into his arms and held him. She followed them to the command, to the house of the doctor, to an apartment with a little guest room.

She followed them, and she watched this little family form, watched her sons gain the support they needed, watched four hearts begin to heal.

She watched, and at the end of each day, she sat in the room with her two boys, and thanked Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye for doing what she couldn’t.

In a bedroom down the hall and in another apartment on the other side of the city, Roy Mustang and Riza Hawkeye found themselves silently thanking Trisha Elric for bringing the boys into the world—and for keeping them in it when they couldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How was that for angst, huh? I've always wanted to write something with Trisha, but never had the opportunity, but this was the perfect opportunity! And this is canon to conflicted!verse, btw--Trisha is the one who pushed Ed to escape, and she's been watching over them ever since. I might do more with ghost!Trisha in the future, but I hope you guys enjoyed this first look at her!
> 
> Thanks for reading <3 Leave a comment or a kudos if you enjoyed it, stay safe and healthy, and I'll see you soon!


	3. every face along the boulevard is a dreamer just like you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some—those who had been personally helped—mourned. Some tried to help find him, for however brief a time. Others shook their heads sadly, quietly murmuring at the loss and saying what a pity it was, at least he didn’t have any family (as if he didn’t have a brother he loved more than anything in the world, simply because the boy they said had no family fought so hard to keep his brother away from the judging eye of the public, from their love and their hatred) to miss him (as if he didn’t have a team that felt the hole from their missing piece _every fucking day)._
> 
> Time went by. And like all sensational stories, the Fullmetal Alchemist’s disappeared. The people whose hero he’d been lost interest after two months. Not to the people who’d lost him, not to his brother, of course, who searched every available hour of every possible day, but the general public…well, they forgot. The Fullmetal Alchemist, hero though he was, was out of sight, out of mind, only remembered every now and again as “that poor kid who disappeared” or “that bratty alchemist who got himself in trouble”. No one cared much, not anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Dying in L.A.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iahWWAr82Q0) by Panic! At The Disco
> 
> To everyone who's read this, or conflicted, or any of my fics: I'm asking you to go to [justiceforbigfloyd.com](https://www.justiceforbigfloyd.com/) and sign the petition to put the rest of George Floyd's killers behind bars, call 612-324-4499 to connect to a hotline that will take you through the case and let you talk to city and state officials that hold these murderers accountable, and support by giving whatever you can to [The George Floyd Memorial Fund](https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd), [The Minnesota Freedom Fund](https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/), and [The Justice For Breonna Taylor Fundraiser and Petition](https://www.change.org/p/andy-beshear-justice-for-breonna-taylor). Call 502-735-1784 to be connected to a hotline that will guide you through Breonna's case and connect you to city and state officials that can help hold her murderers accountable.
> 
> You've read my words, listened to what I have to say. Now I'm calling on you to listen to the cries of the people my country has ignored and oppressed. I can't be a bystander any longer. Donate. Share resources. Sign petitions. Go to protests in your area, if you're able. Anything helps. But don't detach yourself from this. Don't pretend it doesn't exist. Because it does, and it's not going away unless we all stand together regardless of race, class, etc. 
> 
> Learn. Listen. And don't let this continue.

The public knew of the Fullmetal Alchemist perhaps far more than any other State Alchemist. Some, of course, were nearly as infamous—the Strongarm Alchemist for his strange brand of cheerfulness and rather emotive personality, the Flame Alchemist for his charm and wits (though the soldiers who’d fought with him knew him more for his devastating alchemy, a power capable of terrible, terrible deeds)—but the Fullmetal Alchemist was, in their eyes, _theirs._ Whatever the silver pocketwatch he carried made him, this military dog’s first master was _not_ the military, but the people, the ordinary citizens. The _civilians,_ the ones with normal, peaceful lives, and normal, peaceful hopes.

He was not, of course, universally loved, even among those he’d helped in the past. He was obnoxious and cocky and, in some cases, self-centered, but if he saw some sort of injustice (especially, funnily enough, if it was perpetuated by his bosses), he was front and center in all efforts to help out. The stories went from town to town whenever he and his brother visited—not of grand heroics and epic battles, but of small things. Fixing a leaky pipe in an old man’s house or helping a little girl rebuild her flowerbed after a storm or chasing down runaway chickens for hours because the “damn birds” were bothering him. Being pushy and stubborn and rude, but always offering to help out where he could. The true definition of a jerk with a heart of gold, really.

And the more he helped, the more he traveled, the more those little stories spread…the more the people of Amestris claimed him as their own. They didn’t always like him, often disagreeing with those reckless choices that so often ended in destruction. They didn’t always want him, for reasons ranging from the immorality of child soldiers to disapproval of his cavalier, overconfident attitude. But even those who disliked him or thought he was an idiot had a scrap of respect for how hard he fought. For how he fought _for them._

 _Alchemist, be thou for the people._ And the Fullmetal Alchemist _was._

_Hero of the People._

Everyone knew of the Fullmetal Alchemist after two years of his presence in the military, either from rumors, stories, or personal encounters. So everyone— _everyone_ knew when he disappeared. Everyone knew that he was as good as dead. Everyone knew that he was gone.

It took two weeks after the mission for media outlets to be convinced that he hadn’t just wandered off recklessly as he so often did, or started chasing someone down. It took Alphonse Elric filing multiple missing persons’ reports, desperate for the military to start _looking_ for his big brother instead of pretending everything was fine (because he knew, he _knew_ that Ed would never go where he couldn’t follow). It took Colonel Roy Mustang and his team working together to even bring an organized search to fruition. And the world…the world reacted. Amestris reacted.

 _Fullmetal Alchemist Confirmed Missing,_ a headline in Dublith read. A vendor near the newsstand saw a woman with dark hair pick up a paper and let out a wordless cry of fury and grief before storming away with her tall, broad husband in tow. A girl reading a similar paper in Risembool crumpled to her knees and wept, clutching the pages to her chest. The seller, a grocer who had a small collection of papers and magazines, let her take it, knowing that the boy in those pictures was one who’d once come in with his brother and his small allowance to pick up odds and ends. Across cities, people read of the disappearance of young Edward Elric, of the brilliant career cut short and the military asset lost and the terrible tragedy of a young life gone, gone, gone.

Some—those who had been personally helped—mourned. Some tried to help find him, for however brief a time. Others shook their heads sadly, quietly murmuring at the loss and saying what a pity it was, at least he didn’t have any family (as if he didn’t have a brother he loved more than anything in the world, simply because the boy they said had no family fought so hard to keep his brother away from the judging eye of the public, from their love and their hatred) to miss him (as if he didn’t have a team that felt the hole from their missing piece _every fucking day)._

Time went by. And like all sensational stories, the Fullmetal Alchemist’s disappeared. The people whose hero he’d been lost interest after two months. Not to the people who’d lost him, not to his brother, of course, who searched every available hour of every possible day, but the general public…well, they forgot. The Fullmetal Alchemist, hero though he was, was out of sight, out of mind, only remembered every now and again as “that poor kid who disappeared” or “that bratty alchemist who got himself in trouble”. No one cared much, not anymore.

There was a small memorial. A gravestone, when the military declared Fullmetal’s title retired and Edward Elric killed in action. Very few people knew about it, that small, white stone in the ground with his name and those short, painful years inscribed in it. The young alchemist himself, when he was rescued six months later, was never told about it, never knew until months and months afterward—but the people who would end up taking him in, they knew. Oh, they knew.

A candle always burned at the Fullmetal Alchemist’s grave. No flowers, no banners. Just a scrap of red tied to a stick that leather gauntlets dug into the ground, a candle set on the ground and lit with gloved hands, a gear carefully placed on the stone by fingers that knew the pieces they’d made him inside and out. And that October 3rd, mere weeks before he’d be miraculously found, before he’d steal a coat from his tormentors and find the strength to crawl and stumble and flee from the monsters who liked to put children in tiny, cold concrete cells—on that October 3rd, a suit of armor sat by the gravestone for the whole day, tracing the letters on the gravestone in silence.

The world, though, moved on. The world didn’t care about the candle burning on a fourteen-year-old’s empty grave, or the brother that sat unmoving through the night burning his name into his mind. The world didn’t care that the brother was now the same age as that last piece of his family he’d lost, that he thought he was now the older of the two, the only one left.

The world didn’t care. The world didn’t look twice at a broken, crying boy in a phone booth a year and two months after his sensational disappearance. No one thought twice about the lonely little figure tucked under a too-big coat and wrapped up in a red scarf when the Flame Alchemist and the Hawk’s Eye were seen on a walk. No one wondered why Colonel Mustang and his ever-loyal lieutenant protested so fiercely at being sent to the hospital, unknowing of the frightened child who would be left behind begging to know that he hadn’t been abandoned.

They had chosen the boy as theirs, their creation, their alchemist. And the instant he wasn’t good enough, he was forgotten. Yesterday’s trash—literally.

Then…

Well. Then an article came out, the headline bold and black against white pages. The issue was sold out within days, everyone shocked and excited by this sudden triumphant title declaring the return of the Fullmetal Alchemist—and then they read it. Read about tears falling down a small face, about hands that trembled as they held a stuffed animal in his lap. About big golden eyes that seemed too wide and full of fear for that sunken little face, and the way his voice shook and stumbled over simple words. About fearful responses to even kind, gentle questions, about the way he curled up against the body of the colonel who’d taken care of him for months.

The interview was calm, kind, respectful. It painted the little alchemist as he was—a traumatized child, heartbroken and head-broken but slowly healing. Better than he was before, and yet nowhere near as good as he had been. It was the kind of article that would get Allegra Carter nominated for the most prestigious journalism award in the nation—one she’d turn down when it was revealed she’d won. _I didn’t sell some profound story,_ she said when asked. _I asked a frightened, hurt child questions, and he was gracious enough to answer them. That’s basic human kindness, and if that’s earning awards now, we have serious work to do as an industry and as a nation._

That quote would be renowned for decades later, engraved into a plaque above the door of her old office at the paper she’d worked for long before she’d gone freelance. It made some people ashamed of the way they’d reacted when they’d read the article—because not every reaction was favorable. Some blamed him. Some said it was inevitable. A few, often those who’d feared themselves the next target of the only State Alchemist who followed his moral compass even when it threatened him most of all, said that he deserved it.

Rise and fall, some radio interviews called it. Like it was the fault of the kidnapped boy that the public no longer loved him. Like he was a celebrity that had been caught shoplifting or stealing scripts or bribing actors and not a child soldier who’d been held captive and tortured and manipulated for a _year._ Like his existence and survival and recovery was some new, grand controversy.

But some people…some people looked at the story and vowed to be better. Vowed to help, however they could. A nurse working in a hospital who saw that kid rushed into the ER, sick and scared and unconscious, and vowed to do whatever she could to comfort him, even if it meant borrowing picture books from her niece and reading things like _Good Night, Moon_ to him to keep him calm when his adoptive father and little brother couldn’t be in the room. A man running an ice cream parlor who gave the kid a taste of a sweet treat he hadn’t gotten to try in years and vowed to help keep him safe, endearing himself to the family in the process simply by being kind. A sales clerk, frightened but determined, who vowed to give the armor and the Flame Alchemist whatever they needed to find the people that hurt this child and bring them down.

Ordinary people. Not alchemists. Not soldiers. Journalists, nurses, entrepreneurs, cashiers. _Ordinary people._ Ordinary heroes.

Years later, when the child was older, more stable—still shy, still shaky, still more likely to hide behind his father (who he was an inch taller than) than talk to strangers or risk an argument, but able to travel and move and even defend himself if there was no other option (able to _read),_ it was these people he trusted. Allegra Carter, Lacie Monteau, Maxime Corvent, Delilah Somner. Three of whom he’d met, one of whom he’d been told about, all of whom he fought for. Who he conquered his fears for.

 _Unsung heroes,_ each of whom eventually found an envelope in their mailboxes, containing a lovely portrait of each of them—Allegra Carter sitting on the floor of a childish bedroom, glasses askew as she laughed at a half-joking answer, Lacie Monteau in her scrubs, perched on the edge of a hospital bed and reading to a sickly child, Maxime Corvent handing a scoop of ice cream to a chattering couple as a broad smile stretched across his face, Delilah Somner behind the desk of the small tailor’s shop that sold the coat that saved his life, cheerfully writing something in that record book.

And on each portrait were two words, in an elegant, looping script, a far cry from the scrawl those hands once produced: _Thank You._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone else has other links, resources, and petitions they'd like me to share, give me the names of the organizations and I'll link them in the next update of my fics. The information in the chapter notes will be copied and pasted into every update until something changes. I'm privileged enough to be able to stand away from all this, to have a choice in the matter. Not everyone is that lucky, and so I'll be using my platform to help as much as I can.
> 
> Thank you. Please leave a comment or a kudos if you enjoyed the chapter, and I'll see you next time. <3


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